Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
M aude loved feeling the evening breeze in her hair as she drove her golf cart back to her house. The book club had been so good. And not just because she’d come home with half a pan of brownies that the rest of the women said just wouldn’t fit into their diets.
She liked all of them. A lot. Getting to meet and talk to the one and only Blaise Monroe had been a teenage dream come true, but all of the women were forces to be reckoned with.
Paige was killing it on TikTok, Cece had been a real-life investigative journalist, regardless of the award thing, and Essie’s stint as principal was something to be admired.
Maude had given a talk about coding to a class of sixth graders once and had left with her choice to remain childless firmly intact. How Essie survived thirty-three years of middle schoolers was unfathomable.
Kind of made her a superhero, in Maude’s mind.
In fact, in Maude’s mind, she wasn’t sure why Paige had invited her to the club. She was no one special compared to that group. Maybe Paige just thought it would be good to have a younger woman’s viewpoint.
If so, that was all right. But Maude felt slightly inadequate compared to the rest of them. Maybe in another ten years, she’d achieve something really major.
She parked under the portico, turned the cart off, and grabbed her keys, her purse, and the pan of brownies. She’d be having another one, maybe two, as soon as she got inside and made herself a cup of coffee.
Then she was logging on to Nightforge , the MMORPG she played. Should she have told the women about Nightforge ? Or would they have given her blank looks? Would they know that MMORPG stood for massive multiplayer online role-playing game?
Probably not. Just like they wouldn’t get the significance that she was Crown Regent of the Elthar Enclave. Literally queen of fifteen hundred elves. All of whom were real people, just like she was.
Nah. Too weird. And they probably thought she was weird enough. Which, admittedly, she was. But so what? Paige had invited her. And Cece might need her help. They weren’t going to uninvite her now. They wouldn’t do that. They were too nice.
She fiddled with her keys as she approached the front door, getting her house key ready. She was about to stick it in the lock when she saw a folded piece of paper wedged between the door and the frame.
She glanced around, wondering if whoever had stuck it there was still nearby. She saw no one except an older man walking his dog with a flashlight. That was Ned, one of her neighbors. He was a cool dude.
The folded paper had Maude written on the front of it. She unlocked the door and went inside, locking it as soon as she was in.
“Pixel, I’m home.” She turned to look at his tank, illuminated with blue lights to simulate moonlight. “Did you hear anyone at the door? Did they knock?”
She’d been meaning to get a doorbell camera since she’d moved in but in a community like this, she hadn’t felt the pressing need. Not that she thought the note was anything to be worried about.
She flipped the lights on, tossed her purse onto the couch, and took the brownies into the kitchen, where she opened the note.
Hi Maude,
Sorry I had to run. I would have loved to sit with you all day on the beach and catch up.
I don’t know your number so I figured the note would have to do.
Found your address in the Colony directory, in case you’re wondering.
Anyway, I really want to get together. Please call or text me and let’s make it happen. It was so good to see you.
Ollie
His number was scrawled under his name. She reread the note, trying to figure out if this was just him being friendly or him thinking they could pick up where they’d left off. Because if it was the latter, she’d already found out he was married.
And if he was thinking he could have some kind of relationship with her despite being married, what kind of man had Ollie become? Because the Ollie she’d known in high school, the boy she’d been in love with, never would have behaved like that.
People changed. She had. She wasn’t the shy computer nerd she’d been back then. Now she was a loud, outgoing computer nerd.
She smiled for a moment, but it didn’t last as she looked at the note again. If he was trying to turn her into his side chick, she was not cool with that.
A million thoughts went through her head. One of them being that maybe she should let his wife know what he was up to. Then again, maybe he was only interested in catching up. But then, why not invite her to his place to meet his wife? Why not at least mention her?
She could also look him up in the directory and do a little drive by, but that could get weird fast. Especially if Ollie’s wife saw her.
Maude folded the note and looked over at the aquarium. “What do you think, Pixel? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Pixel was drifting near his bubble nest, as asleep as a fish could be.
Maude left the note on the short counter where she sometimes ate breakfast. She got a cup of coffee started on her Keurig, because caffeine wasn’t going to be an issue when she was staying up anyway.
Then she went into the bedroom to change.
Leggings and one of her favorite T-shirts that bore the quote, Not all who wander are lost.
She put four brownies on a plate. They were small enough that four was just about the equivalent of one regular-sized brownie, so she wasn’t going to feel bad about having that many.
She fixed her coffee, then carried it and the plate of brownies into the living room so she could play Nightforge on the big-screen TV.
She settled into her recliner and grabbed the remote.
While the TV was starting, she grabbed her controller, picked up her gaming headphones with the mic and was about to put them on when she heard buzzing.
Her phone. Which was still in her purse on the couch. With a grunt of disapproval, she got up and took it out of her purse.
She’d gotten a text from Cece. Thanks for your offer to help. My daughter’s husband’s name is James Frett. I’m running all the standard searches on him right now, but if you have the capability to run any of the non-standard ones, I’m not opposed to it.
Maude smiled. This was definitely in her wheelhouse. And now that Cece had reached out, it was also a chance for Maude to shine. If she could be useful, the book club women would absolutely want to keep her around. I’ll see what I can do.
Thank you!
Maude stuck the phone on the side table next to her coffee and brownies. She also planned to dig into Essie’s stepdaughter a bit, just to see what she could find. Essie hadn’t asked, obviously, but now that Maude had Sophie’s TikTok account, she could start there.
If she found anything that might help Essie, why not?
Maude had already entertained the thought that someone might anonymously send Essie’s husband a note about what his daughter was up to concerning his new wife. Maude wasn’t about to do that yet, but Essie was a very sweet woman who didn’t seem like the type to tackle this problem herself.
If Maude was anything, she was fiercely loyal to her friends and, in that same vein, very protective of them.
These older women were vulnerable. Okay, so they weren’t that much older.
Except for Cece, she doubted they knew as much about technology as she did.
Or at least how to use it to their advantage.
Blaise Monroe was proof of that. She’d been swindled out of who knew how much money, and the injustice of it made Maude’s temper flare. Battling orc invaders might take the edge off, but what Maude actually wanted was to do something to help Blaise.
Maybe in time, when she got to know Blaise better, she could offer to look into the scammer.
If it really was a large sum, which Maude guessed it was, then the FBI would have handled the case.
Unfortunately, even they rarely got anywhere with these kinds of scammers.
Of course, if the guy was smart, he’d have moved on and changed all of his information by now.
Then again, his score with Blaise might have made him cocky. He could think he was untouchable.
Maude’s eyes narrowed. Wouldn’t she like to show him otherwise.
She returned to her recliner and put her headphones on, getting her game up and logging on. She’d only play for an hour or so, maybe run a few raids with whoever was online, then she would get to work.
Cece’s son-in-law first. Then Sophie Says.
Maude couldn’t do much about Blaise’s scammer until the time was right.
Blaise would have to share whatever information she had, but that didn’t stop Maude from thinking about it.
She could do some searching, see if there was anything online about what had happened to Blaise. Maude doubted there would be.
It wasn’t the kind of thing a person would want made public. Especially not someone like Blaise. The internet was cruel. Maude could imagine the kind of response a story like that would generate.
No, she’d just have to wait until Blaise wanted the help.
Maude adjusted her mic so she could talk to her enclave. “Good evening, all.”
“Maude!”
She smiled at the joint response of her fellow gamers. “Who wants to raid some orc settlements?”
More cheers and a few hoots went up.
She laughed. This was a world she felt comfortable in, a place where she knew exactly what to do and how to do it. She’d been on the beta team for Nightforge , so it was near and dear to her heart.
Navigating the real world wasn’t always so easy. She glanced at the note on the kitchen counter.
She’d deal with that tomorrow.